News item this morning: 17 cm (6.8") of rain has fallen on Vancouver this month. The average is 17.9 cm, but we should exceed it with a 3-day wall of unbroken rain arriving early tomorrow morning and still 5 more days beyond that with expected intermittent rain. The record, incredibly, is 35 cm (14") set 3 years ago.
I should be excited about my impending trip to Oregon for American Thanksgiving, but I still have the blahs. The lack of light is the worst of it. I get out whenever I can, but I usually slump right back into my fug as soon as I get home.
This morning I went to the weekly Faerie Coffee gathering at Cafe a Go-Go, which happens every Sunday a block from my place. It is usually a small group of us who chat for an hour or two. This morning there were only five of us: Aunty Tinkerbell, Rainbow Strongheart, Butterfly Menace, Holly and myself. It wasn't raining, which was a treat, but the skies are darkening again as I write this.
Though it wasn't much of a group this week, I should have my fill of Faeries by this time next week. I work the first two days of the week and then I head down to the Chicken Ranch in Portland with Danzante Caldera Wednesday morning, windshield wipers slapping time all the way.
No further news about the Thanksgiving gathering except that our friend and host Wallowa seems set on a Frank Lloyd Wright-type design for the window he wants me to make for him. More about that when I return.
I realize that the Faerie names I refer to must sound strange to my non-Faerie friends. It's second nature to me now to refer to my friends by their Faerie names. As strange and amusing as they are, they are respected and taken seriously by those who have them and we really do use them.
Faerie names are chosen by their owners, even if they are suggested by someone else. Some, like myself, bring a nickname used in their regular life, or "Muggle" life as some Faeries call it (in reference to Harry Potter), while others spend years with the Faes using only their birth name.
Some name themselves after something from nature they prefer, as Faerie philosophy embraces a reverence for Nature. Examples are flowers or trees, such as Tulip, Cedar, Holly, Manzanita, Chaparral or Tangerine. Others use minerals, such as Onyx or Garnet. Others use combinations, such as Jasmine Amethyst, or add embellishments, such as Juniper Fabulous Forest or Pansy Wyldefyre. Some use animals or spirit names, or refer to spiritual processes or incarnations, such as Full Moon Dancer or Danzante Caldera (dancer in the volcano).
My favourite names are often ones that Canadians choose. Perhaps because we are such a serious nation, the names we choose are often playful or clever, such Ariel Kombat, Butterfly Menace, Morgain Lessloss, Darlene the Ambassador's Wife, Thirsty McBunny, Crystal Shanda-Lear or Celeste E.L.Fyre.
I chose my own name, Luke Warmwater, when I wanted an unlisted telephone number but didn't want to pay extra on top of saving Telus the printing costs. They were fine with listing me under a false name as long as I paid the bill under my legal name. I stuck with it when I became a Faerie because it reminded me not to take myself too seriously. When I was younger I was either too timid or angry (too cold or too hot) to manage life with élan. The name still fits as my goal now is to be comfortable and even-keeled, both for myself and for others, a place of safety and serenity, rather like Goldilocks' proverbial porridge.
I'm sure I'll have more Faerie stories to share when I get home a week from today.
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Sunday, November 15, 2009
new patterns
It has been almost six months since I have finished a piece of stained glass artwork. Yesterday I finished Raspberry Showboat's 158-piece Celtic ankh but I forgot to take a picture of it before he picked it up today. It would have been pointless anyway. This weekend has been so overcast and dark that setting something on the window sill would not be enough to illuminate it. I'll post a photo later when Raspberry sends me one.
I have decided to go down to Portland to celebrate Thanksgiving with some Faerie friends, my first American Thanksgiving ever. It will be exotic. My host will be my friend Wallowa, the owner and landlord of a north Portland Faerie commune known to local Faes as the "Chicken Ranch". I am not sure why. The tenants are not that young.
I have heard that Wallowa extends an open invitation to a large number of friends every year and that this year he will have a sit down feast for 35(!!) guests. Some stay over and of course beds need to be shared. He tells me that one Fae, Mystic One, has asked to be paired up with me. I have a mixed reaction to that. It has been a long time since I have known of anyone who wanted to sleep with me, so I am flattered. I have met Mystic One before and chatted with him twice at Breitenbush, but he has never attracted me sexually. His former Fae name of choice was "Fister", which has the same effect as putting lemon juice on my tight little Canadian ass. Hopefully he respects boundaries.
Wallowa has spent a couple years building an extension onto his sizable house, most of it underground. It is a tasteful expansion but it is not quite complete. When I first visited it three months ago there was a large hole in the wall between the kitchen and the new extension where a window will go when the framing is completed. It's a big space, around 39" wide by 37" tall. He wants a stained glass window installed there, something that lets in light but obscures at the same time to give a little privacy between the units. I have been working on patterns.
He says he wants something simple. He suggested a couple shoots of bamboo to our mutual Fae friend Gerry, who I taught the art of stained glass to 2+ years ago, but Wallowa is a colourful character and needs colour in the kitchen, something that stands out. I have suggested a colourful rooster, like the one in the picture but without the two hens in the foreground. I might leave in the white hen. After all, what would be more appropriate for the Chicken Ranch than chickens? He has also suggested a stylized, geometric Frank Lloyd Wright-type pattern which I am also researching, but my hunch is that he will need something more organic to match his luxurious patio garden off the kitchen. I hope to have both patterns ready to take to him before Thanksgiving.
I have decided to go down to Portland to celebrate Thanksgiving with some Faerie friends, my first American Thanksgiving ever. It will be exotic. My host will be my friend Wallowa, the owner and landlord of a north Portland Faerie commune known to local Faes as the "Chicken Ranch". I am not sure why. The tenants are not that young.
I have heard that Wallowa extends an open invitation to a large number of friends every year and that this year he will have a sit down feast for 35(!!) guests. Some stay over and of course beds need to be shared. He tells me that one Fae, Mystic One, has asked to be paired up with me. I have a mixed reaction to that. It has been a long time since I have known of anyone who wanted to sleep with me, so I am flattered. I have met Mystic One before and chatted with him twice at Breitenbush, but he has never attracted me sexually. His former Fae name of choice was "Fister", which has the same effect as putting lemon juice on my tight little Canadian ass. Hopefully he respects boundaries.
Wallowa has spent a couple years building an extension onto his sizable house, most of it underground. It is a tasteful expansion but it is not quite complete. When I first visited it three months ago there was a large hole in the wall between the kitchen and the new extension where a window will go when the framing is completed. It's a big space, around 39" wide by 37" tall. He wants a stained glass window installed there, something that lets in light but obscures at the same time to give a little privacy between the units. I have been working on patterns.
He says he wants something simple. He suggested a couple shoots of bamboo to our mutual Fae friend Gerry, who I taught the art of stained glass to 2+ years ago, but Wallowa is a colourful character and needs colour in the kitchen, something that stands out. I have suggested a colourful rooster, like the one in the picture but without the two hens in the foreground. I might leave in the white hen. After all, what would be more appropriate for the Chicken Ranch than chickens? He has also suggested a stylized, geometric Frank Lloyd Wright-type pattern which I am also researching, but my hunch is that he will need something more organic to match his luxurious patio garden off the kitchen. I hope to have both patterns ready to take to him before Thanksgiving.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Testing, testing.....
In August my brother referred me to a woman named Moneca, who uses a diagnostic machine calibrated to eastern medical uses, in the hopes that I would get more insight into what is causing my muscular dystrophy. I made an appointment in mid-September, which didn't work out, and then my first official diagnostic treatment happened six days ago.
The first time I went to her office in a yoga centre on Burrard St. The visit was fraught with bad timing and circumstances. First, the yoga centre, supposedly a healing centre, is on the second floor with no ramp or elevator access for disabled persons. The railings were too far apart on the broad staircase leading up to reception so I struggled to hoist myself up a step at a time hugging one of the railings. I was shaky and exhausted by the time I reached the top. Inside, the toilets in the washrooms were in stalls on raised platforms with nothing to hold onto to pull myself up. Some of the yoga rooms were also on a split level with no railings to assist with the stairs. The atmosphere was upper-class yuppie elegance, all white and beige with low light and low upholstered furniture without arms or backs that I could not use, and soft, meditative music playing. In spite of the elegance and that Walmart friendliness of the staff who greeted me, I couldn't get over how much disregard they showed for disabled people. I tried to describe how difficult it was to use their facilities, but their cognitive synapses seemed unable to register the information.
Moneca arrived as I was recovering from my climb. She apologized, though she had little choice since I was fuming by this time. She led me down one of the nondescript hallways to the small room she rents. There she discovered that she forgotten the cables she needed to connect her hocus pocus machine to her laptop. She left me sitting on a stool for half an hour while she ran to Office Depot and then to Best Buy looking for replacement cables.
When she returned she found she had also forgotten her batteries and all her running was to no avail. She was stressed out to the point of crying and couldn't put herself in an intuitive space, which is so necessary for this kind of treatment. I was not in a good space either. I had just learned the night before that my second lover Matt had dropped dead of a heart attack at the finish line of a triathlon the weekend before and I was overwhelmed with sadness. She asked me to talk about about my loss while she gave me a free foot massage, but she turned everything I shared around to talk about herself. I surmised that she was too stressed to focus on me.
Moneca does home visits for the same price, which I didn't know at the time she booked me at the yoga centre. I wasn't impressed that she hadn't suggest that when I booked given my mobility issues. The H1N1 flu, the film festival and bed bug infestation delayed her home visit for six weeks. We finally set up a mutually acceptable date for a week ago.
She arrived with her all-encompassing bio-feedback machine and energy "zapper". I don't know its real name, but it's more than a diagnostic machine. It does something with electro-magnetic frequencies to alter bodily responses. She calls it "zapping"; probably not the correct technical term. She strapped bands around my ankles and wrists, and a large band around my head (that left indentations in my forehead for 2 hours after she left), and cables to connect all the components to her laptop. For two hours she assessed my bodily composition, chakkras and emotional patterns and then "zapped" me to make corrections.
The machine seemed to sense that I was both diabetic and had some issues with muscular dystrophy, but it focused on vitamin deficiencies and my emotional state (low-grade depression, low sex drive and my heart chakkra wasn't very open at the time). I didn't get any leads as to what was causing the muscular dystrophy. The machine threw out vague terms for problems I was facing, such as "trauma" and "poison". When I asked for further clarification she just shrugged and said "They're just words on a page." At another point she told me that I come from a very good genetic stock. The machine read my stock to be a "1" while hers was a "19". She wasn't to tell me much about what that meant either. She confessed she was only able to use 10% of the machine's capacity as she was still learning about it. She had paid $23,000 and was obviously trying to recoup some of it be doing these half-ass assessments. I paid her the $100 fee (which she told me later really should have been $150) and she left.
Two days later she sent me a report that was almost a verbatim repeat of the "words on a page" that the machine coughed up without any interpretation. They were largely useless to me. She also gave me 5 points to work on before her next visit: 1) Check wheat consumption (my sister's treatment for a gluten allergy seems to have worn off after the H1N1), 2) Eat less salt, more raw foods, 3) Learn about hormones dopomine, seratonin and oxytocin (to what end she did not explain), 4) Pick up a book by Mantek Chia called "Microcosmic Orbit" to learn the tantric practice of circulating lust energy through the body, and 5) Understand that what I eat affects me. That last point assumes I know nothing after struggling with food allergies, digestive and diabetic issues and their treatments over the past 20 years. One can always learn more, but where exactly should I focus? This report was supposed to be worth $150? Not!
Today I also went to see a famous Vancouver naturopath and acupuncturist, Larry Chan, who I was referred to by Thomas Moore, the "intuitive healer" my sister recommended. Thomas had said my dystrophy has been caused by excessive uric acid in my body over the last 20 years. My GP says that makes no sense since he tests my kidney function and for uric acid every year, but Thomas told me Larry Chan "walks on water" as far as he was concerned. While I didn't put a lot of stock in Thomas's diagnosis I did more more insights into my dystrophy. I waited four months for this appointment. Hopefully something will come out of it.
Although Larry Chan's manner instilled in me more confidence in his professionalism than Moneca's did, the initial hour-long appointment was $250 and he has requested I have two tests done, one that costs $80, a second that costs $158 and a follow-up appointment that costs $90. Total cost before I get any feedback or treatment = $578. There goes Christmas!!
The first time I went to her office in a yoga centre on Burrard St. The visit was fraught with bad timing and circumstances. First, the yoga centre, supposedly a healing centre, is on the second floor with no ramp or elevator access for disabled persons. The railings were too far apart on the broad staircase leading up to reception so I struggled to hoist myself up a step at a time hugging one of the railings. I was shaky and exhausted by the time I reached the top. Inside, the toilets in the washrooms were in stalls on raised platforms with nothing to hold onto to pull myself up. Some of the yoga rooms were also on a split level with no railings to assist with the stairs. The atmosphere was upper-class yuppie elegance, all white and beige with low light and low upholstered furniture without arms or backs that I could not use, and soft, meditative music playing. In spite of the elegance and that Walmart friendliness of the staff who greeted me, I couldn't get over how much disregard they showed for disabled people. I tried to describe how difficult it was to use their facilities, but their cognitive synapses seemed unable to register the information.
Moneca arrived as I was recovering from my climb. She apologized, though she had little choice since I was fuming by this time. She led me down one of the nondescript hallways to the small room she rents. There she discovered that she forgotten the cables she needed to connect her hocus pocus machine to her laptop. She left me sitting on a stool for half an hour while she ran to Office Depot and then to Best Buy looking for replacement cables.
When she returned she found she had also forgotten her batteries and all her running was to no avail. She was stressed out to the point of crying and couldn't put herself in an intuitive space, which is so necessary for this kind of treatment. I was not in a good space either. I had just learned the night before that my second lover Matt had dropped dead of a heart attack at the finish line of a triathlon the weekend before and I was overwhelmed with sadness. She asked me to talk about about my loss while she gave me a free foot massage, but she turned everything I shared around to talk about herself. I surmised that she was too stressed to focus on me.
Moneca does home visits for the same price, which I didn't know at the time she booked me at the yoga centre. I wasn't impressed that she hadn't suggest that when I booked given my mobility issues. The H1N1 flu, the film festival and bed bug infestation delayed her home visit for six weeks. We finally set up a mutually acceptable date for a week ago.
She arrived with her all-encompassing bio-feedback machine and energy "zapper". I don't know its real name, but it's more than a diagnostic machine. It does something with electro-magnetic frequencies to alter bodily responses. She calls it "zapping"; probably not the correct technical term. She strapped bands around my ankles and wrists, and a large band around my head (that left indentations in my forehead for 2 hours after she left), and cables to connect all the components to her laptop. For two hours she assessed my bodily composition, chakkras and emotional patterns and then "zapped" me to make corrections.
The machine seemed to sense that I was both diabetic and had some issues with muscular dystrophy, but it focused on vitamin deficiencies and my emotional state (low-grade depression, low sex drive and my heart chakkra wasn't very open at the time). I didn't get any leads as to what was causing the muscular dystrophy. The machine threw out vague terms for problems I was facing, such as "trauma" and "poison". When I asked for further clarification she just shrugged and said "They're just words on a page." At another point she told me that I come from a very good genetic stock. The machine read my stock to be a "1" while hers was a "19". She wasn't to tell me much about what that meant either. She confessed she was only able to use 10% of the machine's capacity as she was still learning about it. She had paid $23,000 and was obviously trying to recoup some of it be doing these half-ass assessments. I paid her the $100 fee (which she told me later really should have been $150) and she left.
Two days later she sent me a report that was almost a verbatim repeat of the "words on a page" that the machine coughed up without any interpretation. They were largely useless to me. She also gave me 5 points to work on before her next visit: 1) Check wheat consumption (my sister's treatment for a gluten allergy seems to have worn off after the H1N1), 2) Eat less salt, more raw foods, 3) Learn about hormones dopomine, seratonin and oxytocin (to what end she did not explain), 4) Pick up a book by Mantek Chia called "Microcosmic Orbit" to learn the tantric practice of circulating lust energy through the body, and 5) Understand that what I eat affects me. That last point assumes I know nothing after struggling with food allergies, digestive and diabetic issues and their treatments over the past 20 years. One can always learn more, but where exactly should I focus? This report was supposed to be worth $150? Not!
Today I also went to see a famous Vancouver naturopath and acupuncturist, Larry Chan, who I was referred to by Thomas Moore, the "intuitive healer" my sister recommended. Thomas had said my dystrophy has been caused by excessive uric acid in my body over the last 20 years. My GP says that makes no sense since he tests my kidney function and for uric acid every year, but Thomas told me Larry Chan "walks on water" as far as he was concerned. While I didn't put a lot of stock in Thomas's diagnosis I did more more insights into my dystrophy. I waited four months for this appointment. Hopefully something will come out of it.
Although Larry Chan's manner instilled in me more confidence in his professionalism than Moneca's did, the initial hour-long appointment was $250 and he has requested I have two tests done, one that costs $80, a second that costs $158 and a follow-up appointment that costs $90. Total cost before I get any feedback or treatment = $578. There goes Christmas!!
Saturday, November 7, 2009
a wet November
It is very much a typical late autumn on the West Coast, also known as the Wet Coast at this time of year. It has rained every day over the past week and it is forecast to rain every day in the coming week.
Here in my warm, dry condo, overlooking an unbroken wall of taller office buildings across Hornby St, the grey day looks much worse than it is because my building, formerly an office building itself, has tinted windows that make the sky look darker than it is.
So I took a stroll outside into the West End (also known as the Wet End this time of year) to have breakfast, do a little shopping and post a book to a friend in Colorado. The rain didn't let up. Sometimes it was just spitting and then it was heavy again. I don't do umbrellas, as I find it harder to walk with them. I always leave them behind or forget to bring them with me anyway. I have waterproofed my cap and wear my Gortex jacket instead.
I have to push myself not to give into my low-grade depression I often struggle with at this time of year. Getting outside helps, but not enough. I rested a bit after coming back, then pushed myself outside the door again, this time to go to Kitsilano to buy two "Settlers of Catan" games for my nieces and nephews for Christmas (they can share). I went to Drexoll Games, a store where board game nerds gather to play complicated games. Even the proprietor was caught up in a game so I waited for him. A cute, post-twink customer noticed I had chosen the wrong set and saved me from making a return trip. He was immersed in looking through a box of special $1 playing cards on the counter, part of a type of wizard game that he had been playing since puberty. Some of the cards, he told me, go for $20-$30 each. Yes, Scarlett, we either have too much spending money on this continent or we don't know how to use it properly.
On the way home the sky started to break in the west and took on the look of a Dutch masters painting. Half an hour later the setting sun, broke through under the clouds still over the city, trapped by the mountains, lighting their underbellies and painting the buildings in a brilliant honey gold. For a few minutes it was stunning.
It's 5:30 and completely dark now. It has been for half an hour. I am leaving in an hour to visit Rich and Luis at their new place in Burnaby, bringing my Settlers of Catan game and a batch of fresh baked pumpkin cookies for us to munch on. I dread going to places in the dark that I am unaccustomed to, but they'll be picking me up at Edmonds Stn so at least I won't need to look for house numbers.
Here in my warm, dry condo, overlooking an unbroken wall of taller office buildings across Hornby St, the grey day looks much worse than it is because my building, formerly an office building itself, has tinted windows that make the sky look darker than it is.
So I took a stroll outside into the West End (also known as the Wet End this time of year) to have breakfast, do a little shopping and post a book to a friend in Colorado. The rain didn't let up. Sometimes it was just spitting and then it was heavy again. I don't do umbrellas, as I find it harder to walk with them. I always leave them behind or forget to bring them with me anyway. I have waterproofed my cap and wear my Gortex jacket instead.
I have to push myself not to give into my low-grade depression I often struggle with at this time of year. Getting outside helps, but not enough. I rested a bit after coming back, then pushed myself outside the door again, this time to go to Kitsilano to buy two "Settlers of Catan" games for my nieces and nephews for Christmas (they can share). I went to Drexoll Games, a store where board game nerds gather to play complicated games. Even the proprietor was caught up in a game so I waited for him. A cute, post-twink customer noticed I had chosen the wrong set and saved me from making a return trip. He was immersed in looking through a box of special $1 playing cards on the counter, part of a type of wizard game that he had been playing since puberty. Some of the cards, he told me, go for $20-$30 each. Yes, Scarlett, we either have too much spending money on this continent or we don't know how to use it properly.
On the way home the sky started to break in the west and took on the look of a Dutch masters painting. Half an hour later the setting sun, broke through under the clouds still over the city, trapped by the mountains, lighting their underbellies and painting the buildings in a brilliant honey gold. For a few minutes it was stunning.
It's 5:30 and completely dark now. It has been for half an hour. I am leaving in an hour to visit Rich and Luis at their new place in Burnaby, bringing my Settlers of Catan game and a batch of fresh baked pumpkin cookies for us to munch on. I dread going to places in the dark that I am unaccustomed to, but they'll be picking me up at Edmonds Stn so at least I won't need to look for house numbers.
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